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Research Progress of Thermoelectric Materials, Modules and Applications

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Electronic Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 September 2024 | Viewed by 1098

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, 141 Wołoska str., 02-507 Warsaw, Poland
Interests: thermoelectrics; skutterudites; energy conversion; powder metallurgy; metal-matrix composites
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Guest Editor
Faculty of Materials Science and Ceramics, AGH University of Science and Technology, 30 Mickiewicza Ave., 30-059 Kraków, Poland
Interests: thermoelectrics; energy conversion; copper selenide; magnesium silicide; spark plasma sintering
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Providing sustainable energy to the World’s population is a major societal, technical, and scientific challenge in the 21st century as fossil fuel supplies decrease, while the World’s energy demand increases. Thermoelectric materials have potential applications in power generation devices that convert waste heat into electric current by the so-called Seebeck effect, thus providing alternative energy technology to reduce the dependence on traditional fossil fuels. Moreover, thermoelectric devices can be used as solid-state Peltier coolers, which do not use environmentally harmful fluids. Thermoelectric generators have the advantage of containing no moving parts, making them quiet, durable, and reliable. It is only recently that advances in materials development, theory, and computational tools have shown that thermoelectric devices can compete with traditional refrigeration technologies and be attractive for power generation.

This Special Issue aims to present a collection of articles describing recent advances in thermoelectric-related materials and technologies, ranging from material study to device development. Particular interest will be given to papers focused on both rapid and conventional synthesis of thermoelectric materials, the relationship of structure, microstructure, composition, processing, transport properties, and thermoelectric performance, theory and modeling, multi-scale characterization, design and applications of thermoelectric materials and devices for energy harvesting, cooling and temperature sensing, and many more.

I kindly invite you to submit a manuscript for this Special Issue. Full papers, communications, and reviews are welcomed. Your participation will ensure that this Special Issue becomes an essential contribution to the thermoelectric materials and energy community. Do not hesitate to contact me if you need more information.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Mirosław Jakub Kruszewski
Dr. Pawel Nieroda
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • thermoelectric materials
  • thermoelectric modules
  • thermoelectric thin films
  • thermoelectric energy harvesting
  • electrical properties
  • thermal properties
  • lattice thermal conductivity
  • first principles calculations
  • figure of merit
  • conversion efficiency

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

14 pages, 23098 KiB  
Article
Influence of Sputtering Power on the Properties of Magnetron Sputtered Tin Selenide Films
by Krzysztof Mars, Mateusz Sałęga-Starzecki, Kinga M. Zawadzka and Elżbieta Godlewska
Materials 2024, 17(13), 3132; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma17133132 - 26 Jun 2024
Viewed by 697
Abstract
The ecofriendly tin selenide (SnSe) is expected to find multiple applications in optoelectronic, photovoltaic, and thermoelectric systems. This work is focused on the thermoelectric properties of thin films. SnSe single crystals exhibit excellent thermoelectric properties, but it is not so in the case [...] Read more.
The ecofriendly tin selenide (SnSe) is expected to find multiple applications in optoelectronic, photovoltaic, and thermoelectric systems. This work is focused on the thermoelectric properties of thin films. SnSe single crystals exhibit excellent thermoelectric properties, but it is not so in the case of polycrystalline bulk materials. The investigations were motivated by the fact that nanostructuring may lead to an improvement in thermoelectric efficiency, which is evaluated through a dimensionless figure of merit, ZT = S2 σ T/λ, where S is the Seebeck coefficient (V/K), σ is the electrical conductivity (S/m), λ is the thermal conductivity (W/mK), and T is the absolute temperature (K). The main objective of this work was to obtain SnSe films via magnetron sputtering of a single target. Instead of common radiofrequency (RF) magnetron sputtering with a high voltage alternating current (AC) power source, a modified direct current (DC) power supply was employed. This technique in the classical version is not suitable for sputtering targets with relatively low thermal and electrical conductivity, such as SnSe. The proposed solution enabled stable sputtering of this target without detrimental cracking and arcing and resulted in high-quality polycrystalline SnSe films with unprecedented high values of ZT equal to 0.5 at a relatively low temperature of 530 K. All parameters included in ZT were measured in one setup, i.e., Linseis Thin Film Analyzer (TFA). The SnSe films were deposited at sputtering powers of 120, 140, and 170 W. They had the same orthorhombic structure, as determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), but the thickness and microstructure examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were dependent on the sputtering power. It was demonstrated that thermoelectric efficiency improved with increasing sputtering power and stable values were attained after two heating–cooling cycles. This research additionally provides further insights into the DC sputtering process and opens up new possibilities for magnetron sputtering technology. Full article
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